Subtle Shades of Blush Brighten a Manhattan Makeover

I'm a day person, and I wanted a light apartment," says New York-based designer Mariette Himes Gomez, standing in the bright entrance hall of her newly renovated aerie, eight flights up in a venerable building in Manhattan's East 80s. "And I wanted to walk to work. I've never commuted in New York, never."

Outside the wide window of her bandbox living room, a panorama—of roof gardens, water towers and blue sky—meets the eye. Inside, the walls are pale, with a rosy tint. "Not vanilla but blush. It changes with the weather. When I first saw the apartment, every room was painted a different color: salmon, yellow, blue. It's not that I don't like color, but this time I wanted a clean palette."

Work is Gomez Associates, on East 74th Street, where current projects include designs for the St. Regis hotel, a ranch in Wyoming and a country club in Bedford, New York, as well as residences for longtime clients in New York and Connecticut.

The designer herself maintains a flat in London and a house on Long Island. "I spend half my time in airplanes," Gomez says ruefully. "I'd rented for years in New York, but it was time that I looked for a real home. I needed a place for my books!"

Necessity is the mother of invention. The problem led to a spectacular solution: a magnificent, room-size circa 1850 pine bookcase Gomez discovered serendipitously in an antiques shop one evening as she walked to dinner. Her practiced eye barely required the confirmation of a measuring tape: The unit fit exactly in the place she had imagined it, along the wall dividing the living and dining rooms. "It's a nonextraordinary thing used in an extraordinary way," Gomez remarks. "It's pine, not mahogany; it wasn't made for grandeur, but it makes the room." She pauses. "I love modern clean lines, but I also love old crusty things. Eclectic is a word that's thrown around a lot now, but I think we need always to speak to symmetry and balance. I don't like a lot of things on tabletops, and I fight against anything that's generic."

No such battles to be waged here. Gomez's rooms are ruled benevolently by an oligarchy of elegance, sensibility and playfulness. In the living room, two Louis XVI botanical-needlepoint-upholstered chairs, found at a Paris shop, sit like ladies-in-waiting beside the bookcase. The pair keep company with a deep bergère, a flea market find, covered in embossed black velvet. A miniature wood American flag, which is a Christmas ornament handmade by her friend architect Allan Shope, sits atop a pyramid of books.

Many of the pieces set about the rooms come from Gomez's personal inventory: the glass low table was designed by Billy Baldwin; the sofa along the wall in the dining-cum-sitting room is from the town house on East 78th Street where she raised her children (her daughter, Brooke, now works with Gomez in the design firm); in the master bedroom, the plaid taffeta draperies were recycled from her previous apartment; the 19th-century tortoiseshell boxes on the low table were collected by Alexander Breckenridge, her mentor at the New York School of Interior Design. "He also loved needlepoint," she remembers. "Perhaps that's what drew me to the chairs." She reflects, then says, "Rooms give back to you. It's a question of what makes you contented."

Over coffee at the round dining table, which once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor ("It was out on a landing during the Sotheby's auction," she gleefully recalls, "and I snapped it up"), Gomez ticks off on her fingers some of her favorite things: windows with simple treatments that frame a view; bare floors; and interesting chairs ("I have them everywhere," she says). The 18th-cen-tury Italian chairs grouped around the table, for instance, were ordered long ago for a client, who loathed them. "But I loved them," she says slyly, "so I was happy to inherit them." The long sofa, covered in sturdy chenille, provides additional seating. "We need to rethink dining rooms," she explains. "My life, at least, has become less formal; I like the idea of a salon rather than a seated dinner.

"A wonderful thing about having yourself as a client is that the two of you always agree," Mariette Himes Gomez continues, musing aloud. "A personal environment isn't about embellishment but about pleasure and satisfaction. If I can achieve that for a client, I feel the project's been a great success. I think we all go through various stages in our lives. Now, this is me. I smile when I get home."

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 1/2/2014) and Privacy Policy (effective 1/2/2014). Architectural Digest may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Your California Privacy Rights (effective 1/2/2014). The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Condé Nast.